Transcender, London

"Ecstatic, hypnotic and just plain psychedelic" is the motto for the Transcender festival, the pervasive feeling of the event being that music from anywhere in the world can blow someone's mind. Now in its third year, Transcender brings global music of that kind of quality with artists as varied as the entrancing Bulgarian choir Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares (24 Sep), and masters of guitar deconstruction like Emeralds and Christian Fennesz (at Union Chapel, N1, 25 Sep). Starting as it means to go on, the festival opens with JuJu, a collaboration between one-time Robert Plant guitarist Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara, fusing music of African and western origin to an impressively immediate but uncompromised effect. Support comes from Tuareg guitarist Omara "Bombino" Moctar.

The Barbican, EC2, Fri to 28 Sep

John Robinson

Metronomy, On tour

Metronomy. Photograph: Grégoire Alexandre

Under the paving stones, the beach: it's a thought that's lately proved pretty revolutionary to a brace of English indie bands, creating a riot of rhythm, dancing and drinks with umbrellas in. Albeit in a more reserved way, Devon's Metronomy have recently embraced the holiday mood. Three albums in, their current collection, The English Riveira, marks the flowering of Joe Mount's songwriting into a tasteful embrace of early 1980s British synth-pop music. The English Riviera, duly, is a work that's conceptually strong but also long on sly wit, and in the likes of the great single She Wants, particularly, an elegant funk.

Teeth, On tour

Teeth

No one's playing air MacBook quite yet but the laptop is just as potent a tool for noise rebellion as the guitar ever was. To that end – and wallowing in the twin pleasures of DIY liberation and laptop noise – are London trio Teeth, whose songs connect vintage ringtones, children's toys and the distorted shouty vocals of Veronica So. Clearly in debt to the rather more dangerous Crystal Castles, Teeth have also toured with Sleigh Bells, but while those groups have developed a deep and powerful noise, Teeth's individuality seems to be geared towards novelty sounds. As their single Care Bear reminds us, their mission may be as much to annoy as to disturb and entertain, but at least they do a decent job of getting under your skin.

Sarah Jane Morris, London

Sarah Jane Morris

Sarah Jane Morris, the British singer who had a global pop hit with the Communards on disco anthem Don't Leave Me This Way in the 1980s, and soon after found herself banned by the BBC for her lesbian take on Me And Mrs Jones, is the greatest British jazz and soul singer never to have become a household name. Edith Piaf, Tom Waits, Janis Joplin or Lou Reed are regularly invoked when Morris's sound is described, but her combination of soul power, emotional frankness and political bite has made her a bigger star in continental Europe over the past quarter of a century than she has ever been in her homeland. On this spectacular, Morris-curated gig featuring her old Communards partner Jimmy Somerville, Marianne Faithfull sideman Joe Cang, quirky acoustic pop newcomer Kate Daisy Grant, jazz musicians Mark Lockheart and Annie Whitehead and many more, the ever-formidable singer says thank you to Brixton, the locality she lived in for 16 years.

Mass, SW2, Fri

John Fordham

Tim Garland, London

Tim Garland. Photograph: Eric Richmond

Gwilym Simcock may have joined the long list of jazz nominees not to win the Mercury Prize last week, but – like Polar Bear, Portico and Kit Downes – his profile has been raised considerably. Simcock's powerful acoustic trio are joined on this special Kings Place gig by an old friend and mentor, the dynamic English saxophonist and composer Tim Garland. Garland started out as a Ronnie Scott protege, became an inventive early explorer of folk-jazz crossovers (with the band Lammas) and earned international acclaim as a Chick Corea sideman. He has since developed a parallel life as a cross-genre composer, writing pieces for the London Symphony Orchestra and Northern Sinfonia, among other big-league classical ensembles. A powerful post-Coltrane saxophonist and improviser on the bass clarinet, Garland will significantly stretch the expressive range of Simcock's very eloquent trio.

Kings Place, N1, Sat

JF

Lammermuir Festival, East Lothian

Red Note Ensemble. Photograph: John Wood

There's a hiatus in Scottish music after Edinburgh and before the Scottish orchestras' new seasons, but now the Lammermuir festival fills the gap. Spreading its events across East Lothian, and making use of historic buildings, it offers everything from music for Northumbrian pipes and Gaelic harp (Yester Parish Church, Gifford, Sat) to Philip Glass. The Glass is a rare outing for his 1980s music-theatre piece, 1000 Airplanes On The Roof, staged by National Theatre of Scotland and the Red Note Ensemble at the National Museum of Flight, East Fortune (Sun). The festival also marks the centenary of Gian Carlo Menotti (St Mary's Parish Church, Haddington, Thu), who lived for many years in East Lothian.